I was out home teaching the other night, and while sharing a very nice message about sharing our testimonies with others, I was inspired to share my testimony about music to the family that I was visiting. Now this was OK, because I was Home Teaching the ward Choir Director, and it really sparked a great conversation about sharing the gospel through music.
Now I am definitely not a vocalist or a musician by any means, but even I know the power that a song has on the heart of a person in the right situation. I shared with this family an experience that I had in the Missionary Training Center, getting ready to go to Japan for 2 years.
I was fortunate enough to spend my 2 months in the MTC during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So music was very plentiful about that time of year. My MTC president had encouraged all the missionaries in the MTC at the time to really enjoy the special season. One-way that I figured that I could enjoy my time in the MTC and really take part in the music of the season was to take part in the MTC Choir.
Now, this was not a normal thing for me to do, since the only things that I had ever done musically was to “Milli Vanilli” to the primary music presentation songs when I was a kid; and also learned how to play ‘chopsticks’ on the piano, so that my mother would have a hope of me being able to read notes and maybe play the piano or some sort of musical instrument in my future. Don’t get me wrong, I love my music, I just loved it in the only way that I knew how at the time. I joined the MTC Choir, because I loved to listen to music.
I used to have a pretty sweet setup in my room before I left on the Mission. I had cleaned up an old lounge chair and modified my Dad’s old Hi-Fi system to be able to play CDs, and wired up the speakers so that I could rock out whenever I wanted to. It was a pretty cool system; it even had an old 8-track player on it. It was totally awesome to have a friend over and have them say what the heck is that huge box for on your stereo? I would then whip out the only 8-track tape that I could find from the DI and play it for them. Retro was sooo cool back then too. It is much easier to do this today… a lot smaller too, because all you need now is a little I-pod and some ear buds, and you are off.
So back then, because I had a bunch of brothers and sisters, I usually just sat back in my old lounge chair and put on some headphones and would listen to the deep intricacies of the many different songs that I liked to listen to. I would often find myself relaxing to the point of falling asleep to the sounds of the vibration of the violin strings quivering behind the voices singing the lyrics of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”, or even the many delicate layers of the opening theme to Disney’s “The Lion King”. Music was so intense and moving to me that it was one of the hardest things to leave behind when I left on my mission.
Now I had been listening to music this way for a long time as my mother can testify to, since I was at least 6 years old as I can remember. Back then my Grandma Mi (Joan) gave my brother and me little transistor radios. Mine was orange, and his was light blue. They were the coolest. I modified an old cushion so that I could listen to the sound piece while lying down in bed. My Dad inspired me to do this when he put speakers in his office wall and then covered it with a wall fabric to conceal where the speakers were. I thought that it was pretty cool to be able to listen to your favorite jams coming from some hidden place while crashing in bed.
Anyway, back to the MTC Choir. I was so excited to find out what songs that we would be listening to or “singing” the first time that I went to choir practice. I was sooo disappointed when I heard that we would be singing “Come Thou Fount”. All I could think of was some old pilgrims in big black hats with shiny buckles on their boots, singing what seemed to me to just be an old Thanksgiving day song, about cornucopias and Turkeys. Well I hung in there, besides I could not just walk out of a whole gymnasium full of Missionaries wanting to sing. I was kind of stuck between a very large Hawaiian companion and the rest of the base section, also I had promised myself to really get involved while I was in the MTC.
It was a good thing I did hang in there. Because the director started that choir practice by playing a version of the song over the load speakers so that we could all hear it, and then he went through and read each word from the lyrics, and explained the great meaning behind the fount of blessings. I had never looked at music that way before. Then, when we sang that beautiful song, the spirit welled up inside me like a great fountain that I could not control my emotions. It spoke to my soul, and testified to me of the great love that our Heavenly Father has for each and every one of his children. Then being able to hear what seemed like a thousand voices sing the intricate parts to that beautiful song, has caused that moment to echo in my heart still today.
I was reading a good friend’s blog today, where she talked about Mix Tapes. She talked about how she used to sit and listen to the radio waiting for the perfect songs to record to her special mix tapes. It made me think back to those days when I too would listen to the top 5 hit songs at 9 every night, hoping that my favorite songs would be there so that I could record them for a football mix tape to excite me and inspire me to hit as hard as I could in the next football game, or just rock out in my bedroom playing the air guitar. It made me think back to some of those great “Walkman Moments”, before a wrestling match, or feeling the power of the spirit flow through my heart during a choir presentation or just reclining in my lounge chair back in my old room.
Reading her blog also made me look back on some of the mixed tapes or CD’s that I was given, or even made myself. Like the first Christmas gift that Rachel ever gave me. If you can believe it, one of the songs on that mix tape had the power to get ME to marry her and later in our relationship, to take lessons and learn how to play some simple chords on the guitar, and Me, Mr. Milli Vanilli, to sing the lyrics to the tune of a special song for Rachel on our anniversary. It must not have been that bad, because she is still my wife today.
It is amazing… the power of Music and a Mix tape.
